08/11/2019 - Employee case studies

Klaus Hansted

I am an Associate Director in the Aarhus Office, working in the industrials & chemicals team. I joined Clearwater as an analyst in August 2013.

Why did you join Clearwater International and what keeps you here?

I joined the business as an analyst whilst studying for my master degree. I had a wish to work in corporate finance and Clearwarter stood out as a market leader within its segment. Becoming a part of the firm and the strong culture made it obvious that staying after finishing my studies was attractive and the right thing to do.

What are your main responsibilities?

Project management. Being an Associate Director I’ve progressed from the role of Analyst to Associate to Senior Associate, thus grown from the initial work of data processing, crafting presentations and excel sheets, into managing the process with buyer dialogue, client management, and negotiations. The key to my role is to have a well-planned process run that runs smoothly so the Partner will not need inefficient involvement on the case. This is done by me planning ahead and managing the output from my analyst/associate/senior associate assisting on the case.

What is the highlight of your time with Clearwater International?

After 3 years with Clearwater I had the desire to gain international work experience. After dialogue with my mentor and the managing partner in Denmark, the opportunity materialised into a secondment to the London office, joining their highly successful TMT team for 3 months. The stay was productive in gaining insights to commonalities and differences between the UK and Danish markets, understanding new methods of modelling, presenting, analysing, and, client handling approaches.

How have you developed since joining the business?

Across all parameters I have developed since joining the business! The learning culture within our firm is amazing, both learning from colleagues taking their time to explain an issue, from the strong culture of allowing customer interactions at an early stage, and obviously the Learning & Development resources allocated to employees.

Why is CWI a great place to work?

Clearwater gives all the perks of being a small business, despite pan European presence and strong international footprint. It feels like a Clearwater family, where everyone in the offices has a commitment to a strong social culture, we have amazing cross border events and the urge to aide a colleague reaching out is a true measure of such healthy culture. Whether that being to solve an issue, bouncing ideas for potential buyers, market intelligence, or even for setting up a secondment opportunity for an employee looking to gain international work experience.